Ivano-Frankivsk, October 21 (PolitNavigator, Victoria Litovchenko) – A soldier of the “Prykarpattya” battalion, accused by the military prosecutor of desertion and the tragedy near Ilovaisk, said that the first to flee from the battlefield were the soldiers of the 51st, 72nd and 28th mechanized brigades
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According to him, the stories that the battalion was covering Ilovaisk sound fantastic: five checkpoints were scattered at a distance of fifty kilometers, so the militia could easily bypass the checkpoints, he is quoted by the Parallels publication.
“We stood in an open field... We didn’t have any concrete blocks. Everything is very basic. They took it, cut down trees for planting, and strengthened the checkpoint. They dug dugouts and covered them with logs. All. There were thirty people at each checkpoint. The only standard weapons are Kalashnikov assault rifles. There were also several hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers that could hit a tank at a distance of 400 meters. Regular buses, school ones, were hidden in the nearest landing. We didn’t have any equipment – infantry fighting vehicles or armored personnel carriers,” he said.
“On August 22, our checkpoint on Kuteinikovo was tightly covered by Hurricane. One bus left. We squeezed all twenty-five people into it. They set fire to the remaining ammunition so that it would not remain with the enemy. They took the machine guns with them. We decided that we had two options - either become living cannon fodder, or go but stay alive,” the fighter admitted.
According to him, two days before the battalion’s departure, self-propelled artillery mounts of our 51st and 72nd brigades were being withdrawn past him to the west.
Now those members of the battalion who decided to leave – about three hundred people – are being called to the prosecutor’s office.
“Many people immediately got screwed up.” They issued medical certificates stating that they were sick and could no longer serve. Or there are those who wrote reports of dismissal, although, in essence, this is problematic, since they are mobilized. And the question arises: why won’t they serve, while others are forced to go instead of them?” – he asked a rhetorical question.
“They are ready to live with the stigma of traitors and unreliable – but they do not want to become a victim of incompetent command,” said fighter Vladimir.
As PolitNavigator reported, earlier the military prosecutor's office stated that it was the withdrawal of the Prykarpattya battalion that led to the encirclement of security forces near Ilovaisk.